Tag: food

Tac ‘N Roll

One of the East Village’s greatest culinary sleepers is Tac ‘N Roll, a 3-year-old fusion cafe owned and operated by chef Eric Wong, who traveled the world while in the Marine Corps and blends international flavors he was exposed to during service. While I generally run in the other direction when a restaurant is labeled “fusion,” in this case the term fits and the result is splendid. Here’s the gimmick: pick corn tortillas or a paratha, sandwich roll, burrito, salad, nachos, or rice bowl, and then choose from among 6 principal sauced ingredients to fill them. Beef with chimichurri goes well in the double tortillas, sending the taco spinning in an Argentine direction, while the chicken tikka belongs in the flaky paratha, which tastes more like the parathas eaten in Singapore than those found in India. All receive lush garnishes. Finally, there’s a notable pureed soup made with kabocha squash, smoothies, and a few more snacks

A&A Bake & Doubles

Bed-Stuy Trinidadian mainstay A&A Bake & Doubles Roti just gained a spot in the James Beard canon. The foundation, which runs one of the country’s biggest restaurant awards, named the counter-service spot one of America’s Classics — an honor for regional institutions that have been around for more than 10 years.

Jalsa

The city has plenty of Bangladesh restaurants, but few that represent for the food of West Bengal, India, just across the border. That’s one reason Jalsa Grill & Gravy was so welcome when it opened. Owner Nowshin Ali lived in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, “But I grew up in Uttar Pradesh, and had to learn several languages as I grew up, including Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, English, and Bengali”. The halal food at Jalsa features several West Bengal dishes from a menu of northern Indian fare.

One highlight was a chaat featuring slices of slender eggplant fried with a coating of spiced chickpea flour, dusted with shredded coconut, and arrayed on a hump of sweet and sour potatoes. It was irresistible. Cooked in the tandoor, the outsize lamb tikka kebabs were juicy and smoky, but the ghost chicken tikka was not as spicy as the name promised. Of the West Bengal dishes, there was a chingri malaikari (butter shrimp) with plenty of creamy pink gravy, accompanied by a dish of mustard-laced chickpeas. The dum biryani came with chicken and was pleasingly subtle. “That biryani’s from Lucknow, not as spicy as the one from Hyderabad.”

Kitakata Ramen Ban Nai

When talking about “Big 3” regional styles of ramen, most people outside of Japan have heard of Hakata and Sapporo styles, both having evolved from large metropolitan areas with many vendors and varieties. But a third lesser known style was developed in northern Honshu in the small village of Kitakata which gives it its name. Known for its storehouses full of soy sauce, Kitakata-style ramen uses this as its base, a type of shoyu. The bowl itself appears simple, a broth full of noodles and topped with chashu and some thinly sliced spring onion, but do not let this fool you. This broth has been extracting pure umami from pork bones for “long hours” which gives it an almost smoky and toasted taste, full of earth and charcoal. Ban Nai is the most famous source of this style of ramen, with 62 locations around Japan. Here in the United States there are now 2 in Orange County, California, 1 outside of Chicago, and now 1 tucked into a grocery store in Jersey City.

Zooba

Nolita will soon be home to a popular Egyptian fast-casual restaurant serving street food — making it one of the few Manhattan restaurants dedicated to staples from the country. Zooba, which launched in Cairo and now has 6 locations, will be opening this summer at 100 Kenmare St

Nakamura Niche

Called Niche, the restaurant will be next door to Nakamura’s popular eponymous restaurant and is expected to open with a limited menu. For the new, 14-seat restaurant, Nakamura is serving dishes that combine elements of traditional Japanese cooking with inspiration from New York food culture, such as the legacy of Jewish-American food on the Lower East Side. One is an homage to Russ & Daughters’ famous smoked fish store, topped with copious amounts of fish roe and salmon smoked in-house. There will also be a Japanese take on carbonara, with uni and bacon replacing the guanciale.

Elmhurst Restaurants

It would be easy to characterize Elmhurst as simply Queens’ second, smaller Chinatown after downtown Flushing, or as a bustling Little Bangkok. Strong cases can be made for both, but the dining options here are as diverse as Queens itself. Tibetan dumplings, Venezuelan sandwiches, Indonesian noodles, Malaysian curry, and top-flight Thai can all be had along with some amazing old-school pizza. Herewith, a globe-trotting lineup of Elmhurst’s absolute best restaurants.

The 1000 Best

Today, we’re rolling out the 1000 Best. Our critics and editors have spent months and countless hours reevaluating old listings and revisiting New York’s seemingly infinite array of tony dining rooms, superlative bars, assorted food trucks, and ever-growing roster of food halls to come up with a list that we think represents the very best of what the city has to offer. Do we intend this to be the definitive list of New York restaurants and bars? Of course not. (In fact the actual list will never even contain exactly 1000 businesses.) Instead, we’ve designed it to be a fully searchable directory of our thoughts and recommendations: a highly subjective, always changing group of places we want everyone to know about.

Roberta’s

When Roberta’s first opened, it seemed like the kind of lark that might not last. A few dudes— Chris Parachini, Brandon Hoy, and Carlo Mirarchi— built out much of the wood-fired pizzeria by hand, and opened even without working gas (they used butane burners for the first year.) But along with perfectly charred, soft, chewy pies with charming names like Beastmaster, they also managed to do fried chicken and fresh greens surprisingly well for a bunch of hipsters.

Nearly 10 years later, it’s still worth the pilgrimage. Aside from some veggie-forward options on the menu—former chef de cuisine Nick Barker is to thank for an ever-so-slight shift to a lighter, California style of cooking—there have been no fancy updates to the restaurant, which you enter through a stickered, graffitied red vestibule.